K
KR Williams
....and caches grow at a rate equal to memory (or more, since
caches are an easy place to throw transistors on an expensive
chip), which is *far* faster than "bitness".
....and caches grow at a rate equal to memory (or more, since
caches are an easy place to throw transistors on an expensive
chip), which is *far* faster than "bitness".
T
Tony Hill
*looks around locally* Darn, I think it must be the air here and the
lifestyle... I should migrate to a colder and slower paced country...
Generally speaking, it seems to me here that by the time we hit 60~70
here, there isn't much of a 'life' so to speak, unless you are oodles
rich.
Well, I'm not sure how closely it corresponds to your little neck of
the woods, but my parents are currently living not too far away from
you in Taiwan. They are both in their late 50's now, and in fact my
dad will be turning 60 this year, and they aren't oodles rich either,
having both worked for the government pretty much their whole career.
They both noticed that they tended to lead a MUCH more active
lifestyle than the late-50/early-60 year old locals there. Both of
them have mentioned that they feel poor nutrition (in particular,
rather unhealthy "diets" that a lot of the locals are always on) and
lower levels of physical activity are largely to blame.
Maybe the cold weather does have something to do with it, if even in
an indirect way. Generally speaking it seems that the Scandinavians
I've met seem to live the healthiest and have the most fun in their
old age. However I think a lot of that seems to be due to the fact
that most Scandinavians I've met are very active people throughout
their lives, doing lots of cycling, cross-country skiing, hiking, etc.
Or maybe it's just the saunas! :>
K
KR Williams
a?n?g?e? said:
Oh my! I don't think my mother would agree. She's 90, and still
doing fairly well.
T
Tony Hill
The problem with that theory is that Intel WILL be selling 64-bit
chips using the same core as the Prescott, but only in the form of
Xeon chips for workstations and servers. In fact, the original
article mentioned that they would even sell *actual* P4 processors,
but only if they were strictly being sold into servers.
So this means that Intel DOES need to get it right, they will need to
guarantee compatibility, but they won't see any benefit from that
compatibility on the desktop.
I really don't quite understand this move on Intel's part if it does
pan out as they claim. It would seem to give AMD a real marketing
edge for the next two+ years, even if it doesn't translate to that
important of a performance edge.
R
RusH
KR Williams said:
My internet connection is NOT exactly bursting, and wher is my goddamn
wireless conection on Mt. Everest ?
Pozdrawiam.
G
Gnu_Raiz
I agree, if you read this article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15149 and believe the source it sounds
like their is a very good reason. It looks like their might be a PR
nightmare waiting to be unleashed when they do unlock their 64 bit code.
Guess Intel does not want a straight comparison running the same software
as it will be a bad showing all around.
Gnu_Raiz
G
George Macdonald
I think quite a number of companies might still be choosing the
Itanium, because it's an Intel (music)Especially if the guy making
the recommendation knows his boss only knows what's Intel and he's
liable to get royally screwed if even one thing goes wrong on the
Opteron (whether its actually the hardware or not).
I get the impression that Opteron and even Athlon64 are starting to make a
real dent. Note HP is now selling AMD CPUs in "business systems"...
possibly a jab at Intel for making such a hash of HP's crown jewel
Itanium?... uh, kinda joking there.
I tend to agree with you somewhat - it depends on the quality of life and
there is tremendous variation there. There's also the issue of the
relative size of the productive population - technology can help but there
are limits even there to what's financially/socially viable and I find the
prospect of a population made up of, say 70% >70years old, even if they are
mostly still "productive", kinda gloomy.
I'm sure there are going to be lots of biotech issues to be dealt with in
the future, possibly in that time frame which could strongly influence the
senility, geriatric issues. We already have a "doctor" in the U.S.
claiming, to the disgust of many, that he's cloned a human being which is
supposedly currently in gestation. The fate of Dolly the sheep - early
onset of rare degenerative diseases - has brought fresh controvery there of
course.
OTOH with stem cell research and the possibility of generating fresh body
parts etc. one could even look at the possibility of the ultimate
transplant: the brain - controversial, grotesque to many but I'm quite sure
the issue will come up one day.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
G
George Macdonald
Do you know if Granstdale and/or Alderwood chipsets will support >32-bit
FSB addresses? I can't find any info/rumors on this but obviously that's
one key to where Intel will position EMT64 for the next year or so of
desktop. Obviously i875 doesn't have this capability according to
datasheets.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
T
The little lost angel
I get that feeling too, this is the first time so many of them are
lining up AMD for more than just their fringe budget models. But bulk
of the mass is still against AMD for now.
Frankly, my personal feeling on this entire population issue (ok I
might be a tad nihilistic) is that we shouldn't push living beyond
natural limits unless we are really that hale and healthy at that
point, and we shouldn't be having so many kids. The whole world IMO
would be better off with half the human population. Solves pollution,
deforestation, overfishing etc etc in one stroke. But of course, if we
don't solve those problems, nature will slash our population by half
or more anyway
ppPI've thought of that a long time ago, before cloning became a
realistic possibility. Many sci-fic authors have already done many
variations on that theme. My personal take on it is having a 20yr-old
body ain't going to do much for a 70yr old brain. At this point and as
far as I can see without being a bio expert, you can't possibly
rejuvenate the brain. I'm sure even those who are quite active at 70
have to admit their cerebral functions are definitely not at 20~30ish
levels any more. More efficient and effective due to experience and
knowledge, but in terms of raw speed and power, it's definitely going
down hill.
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Nate Edel
The little lost angel said:
There are people working on it; not nearly so actively in the context of
aging, but in the context of various forms of brain damage and paralysis,
and in the end, recovering damage due to aging _may_ not prove to be all
that different.
If, for example, we can ever figure out a way to produce stem cells directly
from an adult (and thus with the adult's own genes) things may get very,
very interesting.
T
The little lost angel
But the brain cells can't live forever no? At some point they stop
multiplying and replacing dead ones. Unless (from what I understand of
this cell longevity thing), they find a way to stop the telarase (or
something like that) from being shortened with every multiplication.
But when that happens, we get basically cancerous cells that don't
know when to stop.
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Nate Edel
The little lost angel said:
As far as it appears, no specialized adult animal cell can.
That's true for all, or almost all, adult animal cells.
Telomeres; they're sometimes called "genetic clocks" -- nonsense codes at
the ends of chromosomes, that are shortened at each replication. Telomerase
is the enzyme related to them.
Cancer cells are not, generally, inhibited by the telomeres, that's correct.
So globally stopping their action would not be a good thing -- one aparant
function of the telomeres is to stop out-of-control reproduction by
potentially cancerous cells.
But there may be a way to "reset their clock" -- to reconstruct telomeres on
a cell while allowing the newly longer telomeres to function normally. I
don't know if it might be possible on a living cell in the body, but it's
quite possible that in a decade or two we'll be able to take a cell from an
adult, and to create a new stem cell from that adult's own genetic material.
Genetic engineering at the level of constructing whole genes and chromosomes
(*) today is still very rudimentary, but it's moved by great leaps in the
last 15-20 years.
If you can do that (whether it's even possible is a big "who knows?" right
now), and you can somehow reset the telomeres on those cells (**), you could
do a lot to regenerate damaged or aged tissues -- including neural tissue.
Of course, in terms of mental function, we don't know what regenerated
tissue/neurons would really mean... it's a much more straightforward issue
with simpler and better understood structures in the body.
(* as opposed to splicing in a whole gene intact, which scientists have
gotten quite good at.)
(** another "who knows?" but if you can generate adult stem cells outside the
body, _relatively_ straightforward)
T
Tony Hill
The momentum is definitely there like it hasn't been before. I don't
think IBM or HP have ever sold servers with AMD processors in them
before, and now IBM has one of their top-end workstations (for x86 at
least) using Opterons as well. A change in the air? I guess only
time will tell.
Frankly, my personal feeling on this entire population issue (ok I
might be a tad nihilistic) is that we shouldn't push living beyond
natural limits unless we are really that hale and healthy at that
point, and we shouldn't be having so many kids. The whole world IMO
would be better off with half the human population. Solves pollution,
deforestation, overfishing etc etc in one stroke. But of course, if we
don't solve those problems, nature will slash our population by half
or more anyway
Don't be so sure about solving all our worlds problems simply by
having fewer people, remember it didn't work back when we did have
fewer people. Despite popular belief, environmental problems are most
definitely NOT a modern invention. Go back a few thousand years and
the ancient Egyptians had serious environmental problems caused by
their agricultural practices. Some have even theorized that these
problems played at least a small role in the decline of the ancient
Egyptian empire. Regardless of whether that is true or not, it is
clear that their agricultural system wasn't all that sustainable.
More recently England and much of mainland Europe managed to do a good
job at deforestation a couple hundred years ago, and back in the 1800s
air population in London was rather terrible. And all of this with
much less than half of our current population.
Almost all of our problems start with issues related to wealth and
power, the environmental aspect of these things tend to be more
symptoms, and curing the symptoms is unlikely to cure the problem. Of
course, I'm not sure that there is a cure to the problem short of the
entire planet suddenly changing their entire nature and deciding to
setup a whole Marxist-style utopia. I, for one, am not exactly
holding my breath on that one, especially given that most attempts in
this direction have been rather miserable failures.
There is still a whole hell of a lot that our current level of
biological science doesn't know in this regard, so I think it's very
premature to saying "never" about rejuvenating (or at the very least,
greatly slowing the degradation of) the brain.
G
George Macdonald
A lot of that "mass" currently is in the mobile market, which AMD is having
trouble penetrating... partly due to the fact that Intel's Centrino
campaign has been so successful and mfr inertia. Take away mobile and Dell
worldwide and it'd be interesting to see the numbers.
Frankly, my personal feeling on this entire population issue (ok I
might be a tad nihilistic) is that we shouldn't push living beyond
natural limits unless we are really that hale and healthy at that
point, and we shouldn't be having so many kids. The whole world IMO
would be better off with half the human population. Solves pollution,
deforestation, overfishing etc etc in one stroke. But of course, if we
don't solve those problems, nature will slash our population by half
or more anyway
I agree - all the GW hysteria and water-shortage angst is looking at the
wrong end of the horse - it's about population control. I'm still not sure
what the developed "rain-rich" zones are supposed to do about "rain-poor"
desert water shortages... ship them water?... or invite them to come and
share?
When I see some docu-short on a father (with 3 wives) in someparched area, where they scrape at the earth for food, who is wringing his
hands about his 22nd child's illness, I have trouble imagining a
"solution."
Hard to say. I'm not sure how the brain function degrades, what mechanisms
are involved, when there is no specific disease. There are enough old
people around who are still alert and active well into old age, certainly
past 80s, which lead one to think that general body and vital organ
degradation, or something as yet unknown, plays a part. The "good genes"
proposition seems open to refinement. Unfortunately, apart from the very
fringe of medical science, we live in a time where "blame the patient" is
in fashion by the medical powers... and much too much energy is expended in
extending that argument.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
T
The little lost angel
My take on it is that it's the same overpopulation problem throughout.
At any given point the technology and infrastructure for an
ecologically long term self-sustainable system falls short of the
demands placed on it by the population x wants/demands.
While Malthus (or whoever it was) was not quite right in his theory
that we will all starve to death quite rapidly (due to arithmetic
increase in food production vs geometric population increases). I
think he did skip across the surface of the fundamental problem. As
long as population increases, the total demand on the systems and
whatever technology available at that point will be greater than the
sustainable level.
While I can understand animals being animals multiplying as much as
they can where there is ample food, humans being humans should have
better self control. Is there truly a need to have 3~4 kids just
because we appear to be able to afford it (in all ways not just
parents having money).
And of course those living in poorer countries who still believe that
having 10 children will ensure there's a chance at least one will make
it alive. Is it REALLY that important to continue one's genetic
strain? And doesn't it make more sense that resources barely able to
support 10 children would ensure a much better life for only 2
children?
If we can stop and reverse this population increase, the pop x demands
will stagnate and go downwards. At the same time, technology does not
pause but will continue to improve on various areas. At some point, we
will have a reasonable population within a technological framework
that is self-sustainable infinitely without killing off the planet.
Every time my government makes some noise about encouraging people to
have more kids, I shudder... It's bad enough squeezing 4 million
people on this dot I live on and now just because the technology
allows it, they are planning to squeeze 6 million of us in a country
smaller than most US cities... and probably towns for that matter.
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The little lost angel
I expect nature to be coming up with the solution pretty soon. Every
year we get something that kills us faster or better. Ebola was too
lethal too quickly, SARS was great at spreading but not lethal enough.
We just need something that combines the sufficiently long incubation
period of SARS with the lethality of Ebola, though hopefully painless.
If we don't want to solve it ourselves, the system will eventually
turn around and bite us, it won't be pretty then.
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George Macdonald
I was just reading about the concerns of virus species jumping and in
particular, the risks which are still being taken in Africa, particularly
wrt to the consumption of monkey and other primate meat. To many Africans,
monkey is a delicacy, apart from some other less umm, savory things they
apparently do with them and there are new human infections popping up
regularly. I also read that in the U.K. African immigrant population, huge
sums are paid for smuggled monkey meat.
As you say, there is the thought that inevitably, one of those days,
there's going to be a "big one". If AIDS had been easily spread we could
all have been dead a few years ago. The U.K. is still not sure of the full
effect of vCJD, given its estimated incubation period of 10-15 years... and
that was a *big* species jump.
I shudder to think....
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
T
Tony Hill
That is one possible way to look at it... or you could look at the
other side of things, that humans will place unsustainable demands on
the ecosystem for any given population level. ie if you cut the
population in half, our infrastructure will be cut and the consumption
of the remaining half will rise until it exceeds what is available.
Well, it is perhaps important to note at this point that the world
produces enough food to supply everyone on the planet at this time,
and yet 1/3 of the population is malnourished. In other words, there
is much more going on here than simply the amount of food vs. the
number of people.
Of course not! NEED has very little to do with this sort of decision.
Like it or not, that's about the most basic human instinct, ties right
in with the whole survival thing.
Either that or the small population will see less demand for increased
technology (ie spending more money) and more opportunities to use
existing resources (make more money) and will end up right back where
we started, just with fewer people.
Interesting fact for you, the city I live in (Ottawa) has a geographic
area of 2760km^2 and a total population of bout 800,000. All of
Singapore has a total geographic area of 693km^2. Of course, Canadian
cities are a bit odd, not only in that we have very low population
densities, but also in that we've recently (past 10 years) been
"amalgamating" all our cities together, supposedly to reduce costs
(with mixed success), so what is "Ottawa" now used to be Ottawa and
about 15 towns around the city.
Still, despite the low population density of this country (even if you
don't count the rather inhospitable far north Canada still has an
extremely low population density) there are still plenty of
environmental problems, people who can't afford food and general
unsustainable production in many areas.
T
The little lost angel
Yes sadly, the root problem of economy... Unlimited Wants
The infrastructure is being overstrained and in some ways misused.
Logistics is of course the parameter here. If we halve the population
and move most people to reduce the spread by a decent bit, we would
solve the logistic issue as well as reduce human impact on the
significant parts of the environment, i.e. leave the forests and
jungle alone except for small communities of scientists/researchers to
study them.
Well, the thing is, despite the fact that in theory there are
unlimited human desires, there IS a limit to how much food and such
basic necessities that a person can consume. Much of the damage to
forests, seas and such are principally food related, no?
The problem with having too big a spread is logistic and
administrative problem. Stasheff wrote (probably pinched it from some
philosopher I don't know about) something about how an empire's size
is limited by its communications, once it exceeds a certain
communication delay due to size, it will break down. I believe a
similar rule applies to food production and such. Below a certain
population density, the distance required to service all population
kills the efficiency of the system. But OTH above a certain density,
the overcrowding creates problems for the environment.
Naturally such a complicated issue won't involve such limited facet or
considerations, but I believe with half the population, well planned
cities at good spacing concentrated in the already stripped and
developed areas of the world would go towards stopping the negative
impact upon the parts of the world still relatively untouched. After
all, half the population would probably fit into existing cities we
already have in the northern hemispheres.
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Neil Maxwell
It's interesting to note that the WHO's list of top 10 risks to life
and health globally includes both malnourishment and overconsumption.
It's definitely a problem of resource distribution, but the
governments of the poor countries have as much blame as those of the
overconsuming countries.
Unfortunately, idealized solutions involve imposing a governmental
entity's will on large bodies of people, and that wouldn't go over
well in a lot of the "have" countries. I'll admit I wouldn't be too
keen on some uber-UN telling me to move to Australia (or even Wyoming)
to even out the world population. Living in California population
center has its drawbacks, but it's my choice. Not thinking too
globally, I fear, but there you have it.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer